13YO DD Pitching Form. Suggestions?

[Geekydad]

Here's a video of my DD who is playing rec league ball. She's only thowing about 40 MPH.

I've been reading as much as I can on this site and have started working on internal rotation concepts.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/U3cPBtRQy8c&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/U3cPBtRQy8c&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Her arm seems stiff at 3 o'clock and suspect it's hindering her arm whip. I think she could also get more explosive push from the rubber.

I've attached stills of 12, 3, 6 o'clock and follow through position. BTW, the center of the cones from right to left mark the rubber, 5' from rubber, then 2' increments to do a poor man's speed estimation by converting ft and number of frames per second to MPH. I shot this with a Kodak Playsport @ 60 fps. The light was getting low here in the evening.



Any suggestions?

 

[tojo]

Can you post more video? I do like her frame for a pitcher and believe she is definitely capable of and is throwing more than 40 MPH. Her motion has a lot more positives than negatives. If you can post a side, front and back view on video, it would be helpful.

 

[sluggers]

Some questions: Does she enjoy pitching? Are you and her willing to make a commitment to get better?

If she is doing all she wants (i.e., pitching rec league softball--and there is nothing wrong with that), then perhaps it isn't worth worrying about.

But, if she has decided she wants to become a good pitcher, then it seems that she can become pretty good. (FYI, Monica Abbott didn't start pitching until she was 12.) If she is an athletic young lady and she wants to work at pitching, you might have quite a pitcher.

The first point is that her footwork isn't correct. Compare her left foot with the left foot of Osterman at the 3 oclock position. Her left foot needs to be pointing toward 1B. I'm really impressed that she is getting open with such poor footwork.

At 12 oclock, you can see that your DD's weight has moved to far forward. She needs to keep her weight back over her left foot as long as possible.

At release, again, her weight is too far forward, so she is losing a lot of speed. Also, her glove needs to be coming down on the inside of her leg rather than the outside of her leg.

If she is serious about this, I would really encourage you to find a good pitching coach.

 

[Geekydad]

I'll try to post more video with front and back. As far as her interest level, she enjoys pitching, but I've been careful to encourage, but not push her too hard in any of her athletic interests. I still want it to be fun for her. She plays volleyball and basketball as well, but probably won't play basketball in High School next year. Right now she likes volleyball as much as softball.

Last season she had bad year at the plate in 14U when facing faster pitching and I thought that might be discouraging for this year. I asked her towards the end of basketball season if she was willing to work to get better this year and she said yes. I tried to see if she had any goals for pitching and right now she says she'd like to pitch at least on the freshman team next year. I've had offers on the table for getting her pitching and hitting coaches, but she right now she says she likes working with me as we figure this out together.

We used Mark D.'s 3 week conditioning program to jump start her for the season and she followed it to a T without complaints. She is willing to work. We've used techniques I've learned here to work on her hitting and have taken her from "hands to the ball" approach to "barrel to the ball". She's made good progress in curing her bat drag, but have some way to go. Last year she could not hit a low inside pitch. This year in practice, she was able to pull the low inside pitch from the fastest pitcher on our team (who has a PC). But that's for the hitting forum.

With this new encouragement from hitting, her interest has increased again in pitching and she agreed to at least work 2-3 days a week besides games to work on speed and control. We started messing around with a changeup last year but has rarely used it in game situations until she has better control.

I catch for her and it was hard for me to concentrate on her form as well as catch. Since getting the video camera, I'm able to see things that I couldn't see before. I did notice she was leaning a lot and we just started on getting her to keep her weight back (it was worse before).

We'll start looking at her push off foot position. Some of the foot turn might be hidden by the grass as she's dug out the grass in front of the rubber.

Thanks for your help and advice.

 

[tomzpc]

She is also landing heel first which is a no-no. I only noticed because my daughter does the same thing. =)

 

[Geekydad]

Just curious. Why is this a no-no? Is it an injury prevention issue due to the jarring of landing on the heel? Or too abrupt that it causes head to jar and eyes to loose focus? Or something else.

 

[Geekydad]

Sluggers,

I assume you meant 12 o'clock instead of 3 since that's where you highlighted the picture with the red oval.

Thinking about your comment about her footwork, with her pivot foot pointing forward vs. pointing towards 1st base, it the purpose of that to get leverage and open sooner? I was watching Blaine Luna of Texas and she appears to have her pivot foot pointed towards the catcher when she pushes off. She also appears to my novice eyes to be one of the most closed pitchers at release of the high level pitchers.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

There are some closed pitchers, but your DD isn't one of them.

"Why is this a no-no?" It is a timing thing, for me. My arm has a lot of traveling to do from the time my toe touches down to the time my heal drops.

When we are walking we do not do it flat footed.

Yes, I like your DD's build a lot. She has some timing issues, I would work power K's and a lot of walk throughs, with her.

Also, pitch with her cleats on, in practice. (I haven't see that much grass, since I left Springfield.)

Take her to the field and take a catcher. Then, let us see more video from all 4 sides of her.

 

[lhowser]

The still comparisons provided by sluggers between your dd and Cat are a great place to start.

Until she recognizes the position of her weight relative to her front and back side she is going to have lots of problems. One key (which may be a symptom, not a cause) to look at is the relationship between the front and back shoulder. Compare which should be higher and which should be lower in each part of the motion comparing your DD to cat. Understanding the why of this relates to everything else. Not just the shoulders but the leap, the landing, the bearing of weight on the front side. Figuring that out using the shoulders as a cue and video as a tool may be a good place to start.

 

[lhowser]

Just curious. Why is this a no-no? Is it an injury prevention issue due to the jarring of landing on the heel? Or too abrupt that it causes head to jar and eyes to loose focus? Or something else.

Same principles as hitting or throwing. Try swinging or throwing overhand landing on your heel first. Mis-timed or no frontside resistence.